Within the animal kingdom, horses are considered to be elite athletes due to their unique physiology. Since sport horses are required to perform at an extremely high level, even small changes in health can be detrimental to their performance and may have the potential to negate months of a costly training program. Further training of horses in which a decline in performance is noted may lead to rapid degeneration in certain circumstances and therefore an indication of the cause of ill health should be rapidly investigated. The detection of such changes is often challenging and requires the utilization of equipment and skill which are typically only provided in a laboratory setting.
Common causes of poor performance that may be managed at the horse's side by the veterinarian and the trainer include effects of the musculoskeletal system, the respiratory system, inflammation (such as general inflammation or infectious inflammation) and other illness. Conditions affecting the musculoskeletal and respiratory systems are of particular interest as breakdown in the physiology of these systems has been identified as the main cause of disruption and interruption of thoroughbred racing competitions (Wisher et al. 1996).
In many cases, the lack of clearly visible symptoms means that the specific body system affected cannot be determined, while in others the point at which the onset of symptoms becomes notable is already beyond the threshold where an intervention can be used to preserve the performance of the horse.
There is therefore a need for the rapid pre- or post-symptomatic detection and early stage diagnosis of clinical and sub-clinical infectious conditions such as those resulting in inflammation, and to distinguish such conditions from other inflammatory conditions so that appropriate treatment can be given. Early stage diagnosis in such situations may be enhanced by maintaining a careful and precise history supported by scientific evaluation of the affected body systems.
In addition, when a problem is known or suspected with the horse, there is a need for regular monitoring of the severity of the problem, and the response to intervention(s), such as response to antibiotic or anti-infective treatment, or monitoring severity of exertional rhabdomyolysis to avoid musculoskeletal damage and over-exertion.
Further, there is a need for pre-performance screening for competitions and for official veterinary inspections. Furthermore there would be a benefit in screening newborns for infection.
There are a number of devices which are available for point of care testing however these devices are tools solely for the use of the veterinarian and are not designed to facilitate use by other equine professionals such as the trainer. Nor are they designed for diagnosis of equine disease or ER specifically. Examples of such instruments include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,669 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,284. U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,669, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a system comprising a disposable device and handheld reader which can perform a variety of electrochemical measurements on blood or other fluids. The system has found use in the human clinical setting and has subsequently been adapted for veterinary use. U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,284, incorporated herein by reference, describes a benchtop analyser which requires the insertion of disk based cartridges containing a predetermined panel of tests. The device is developed for use of veterinary professionals and its size makes it most useful as a benchtop unit rather than a complete point of care testing device.
WO2013/088429 relates to a method and assay for eliminating the hook effect in the detection of a target analyte such as an acute phase protein in a bodily fluid in which the target analyte comprises a member of a specific binding pair comprising applying the sample to a solid phase carrier material, generating a signal in accordance with downstream movement of the labelled first or second members and the target analyte to bind with the complimentary immobilised first or second members, and detecting the presence of the target analyte in accordance with the signal generated at the complimentary immobilised first or second members.